Operationalizing Sustainability

10Sustainability Engineering, and Holism: Thinking Conditions are a Must

10.1. Introduction to holism

In our society, business and companies, a social approach to management requires expanding our vision in relation to conventional business models. Indeed, there is a need to integrate more elements, agents and constraints, to change our way of thinking and to expand the boundaries of firms to areas until now ignored.

In that sense, the social approach in business, as described in the previous chapter, is gradually becoming a holistic approach. To recall some basic definitions, the term of “holism” comes from the Greek “holos” which means a “whole”. This “global world” notion is developed in [MAS 15b]. In what follows, our aims should be:

• – to define a holistic process and the consequences on a holistic corporation;
• – to define the ins and outs of such an approach in our daily operations management;
• – to define a short methodology to be applied in sustainable systems.

10.1.1. What do we mean by holism?

Holism is a process, a way of thinking, which emphasizes a comprehensive view of the world; using this approach, we can progressively understand any system as a whole: instead of studying each part separately, we focus on the interactions between all the elements that compose and constitute its complexity. We are all familiar with so-called “system analysis”; here, we simply state that this approach has to be generalized to better include the relations existing between one part ...